Boomerang effect

Your report on the criminal justice and immigration bill (Justice reforms focus on prostitution and jail numbers, June 27) quotes me as opposing new restrictions on suspended sentences. In fact I support the government's move to restrict suspended sentences to serious offences. Courts often misuse suspended sentences by giving them to offenders who would otherwise have received community penalties. If the sentence is later activated, this "boomerang" effect increases rather than reduces pressure on prisons.

Despite this measure and the welcome reduction in prison terms for recalled prisoners, I still regard the bill as a missed opportunity to reduce the prison population. Faced with the overcrowding crisis, the government should have used the bill to remove imprisonment for low-level crimes and to cut sentence lengths for non-dangerous offences. Paul CavadinoChief executive, Nacro